The Passivity of Women in Fascist Society – Andrew Devenish

In Francoist Spain, as in Nazi Germany, there was a specific
kind of woman that was socially acceptable and a specific role for women that
was promoted by the state. Both societies encouraged women to focus their
energy on keeping a household, nursing, and supporting the male soldiers, or
male population in general. The proper, acceptable woman was the woman who did
not venture outside of these defined gender roles. Nazi Germany banned women
from practicing law and discouraged them from seeking out traditionally male
professions, lauding women as heroes for having many children. According to
Lopez and Sanchez, official Francoist propaganda stated during the Spanish
Civil War that women were helping the war effort by “carrying out… nursing,
charity and social services, sewing clothes, writing loving yet chaste letters
to the soldiers, keeping the home warm and orderly for the moment that men
should return victorious”. Although many women did take a more active role in
supporting the Nationalist cause, and there were prominent women in Nazi
Germany who did not strictly adhere to the state-supported gender roles, the
official messaging of these fascist societies explicitly promoted traditional
gender roles and minimized the more active parts women might have played in
these societies.

But it wasn’t just the official propaganda that pushed this
message. Many who look back on these societies, including historians, tend to
do the same thing. Lower points out in her book that the history that she is
writing has been barely touched on by other historians, and the number of women
who actively participated in Nazi society and enabled genocide is most likely
far higher than previous estimates. In the postwar period when Allied
prosecutors investigated crimes committed in Nazi-controlled territories, women
were scarcely prosecuted or investigated, and only a few were ever indicted. The
same is true of Francoist Spain. Lopez and Sanchez say that many studies and
books written about this time period in Spain also minimize the role that women
took in supporting Nationalist causes, especially in regard to the Auxilio
Azul Maria Paz. There is a widespread tendency, both by contemporaries and
those looking back, to minimize and undermine the roles that women took in
fascist societies. In these societies themselves, a passive role for women is officially
promoted, and when looking back at them, what active roles they may have had
are minimized or overlooked.